American Public Libraries Great and Small

In the course of eighteen years, beginning in 1994, the
California-based photographer Robert Dawson took pictures of hundreds of
public libraries across the United States. The results are collected in
his new book, “The Public Library: A Photographic Essay,” to be
released next month. Many writers have written eloquently about the role
of libraries in American life (see Mark Twain’s impassioned praise of
Fairhaven, Massachusetts’ Millicent Library, in the third slide above),
but Dawson’s project makes a powerful case for how public libraries
serve communities in every corner of the country. In the introduction,
he writes, “Public libraries are worth fighting for, and this book is my
way of fighting.”

All photographs from “Public Library: A Photographic Essay,” by Robert Dawson, Princeton Architectural Press, 2014.

Peterborough Town Library; Peterborough, New Hampshire, 2009.
Established in 1833, this is the first tax-supported library in the
United States.

Willard Library, Evansville; Indiana, 2011. Built in 1885, this is the
oldest public library in Indiana. Housed in a spectacular Victorian
building, it is rumored to be haunted. While photographing a dark corner
of the interior, I thought I saw the resident ghost. Live GhostCams are
currently keeping watch at willardghost.com.

Millicent Library; Fairhaven, Massachusetts, 1994. In 1894, Mark Twain
wrote a letter calling this library “ideal”: “Books are the liberated
spirits of men, and should be bestowed in a heaven of light and grace
and harmonious color and sumptuous comfort, like this, instead of in the
customary kind of public library, with its depressing austerities and
severities of form and furniture and decoration. A public library is the
most enduring of memorials…. All other things which I have seen today
must pass away and be forgotten; but there will still be a Millicent
Library when by the mutations of language the books that are in it now
will speak in a lost tongue to your posterity.”

Mill Valley Public Library; Mill Valley, California, 2012.

Mark Twain Branch Library; Detroit, Michigan, 2011. This is one of
several Detroit-libraries branches that closed in 2011, owing to budget
cuts.

The Handley Regional Library; Winchester, Virginia, 2011. A Confederate sympathizer built this library after the Civil War.

George Washington Carver Branch Library; Austin, Texas, 2011. Black
citizens in East Austin strongly advocated for a library in their
community, and this was the first branch to serve them. The mural is by
the Austin artist John Fisher.

A library built by former slaves; Allensworth, California, 1995. Allen
Allensworth was born into slavery, in Kentucky, in 1842. He later became
a petty officer in the U.S. Navy, a Baptist minister, and a chaplain in
the U.S. Army, and he founded the colony of Allensworth in Tulare
County, California, in the early part of the twentieth century. This
library is a re-creation of the original, in what is now called Colonel
Allensworth State Historic Park.

A former night club and library; St. Louis, Illinois, 2012. Originally
built as an Elks Club, this abandoned library was once a popular night
club, where Miles Davis, who grew up in East St. Louis, got his start.

Central Library; Seattle, Washington, 2009. The Dutch architects Rem
Koolhaas and Joshua Ramus were the principal designers of this library,
which opened in 2004.

Richard F. Boi Memorial Library, the first Little Free Library; Hudson,
Wisconsin, 2012. Todd Boi started the Little Free Library movement as a
tribute to his mother, who was a book lover and a schoolteacher, by
mounting a wooden container designed to look like a schoolhouse on a
post on his lawn. Library owners can create their own boxes, usually
about the size of a dollhouse, or purchase one from the movement’s Web
site (littlefreelibrary.org).

The Queens Library bookmobile; New York, 2012. The bookmobile stationed in the Rockaways, after Hurricane Sandy.

Beautiful, just beautiful esp the Tulare County, George Washington Carver and the free libray on the lawn and the one in Virginia

I remember the first time i (around 7-8) took out a book from a US library and i was just in awe of the whole thing- the lighting, the AC lol, how big it was- both the bldg and the collection (they dont make them like that back home). I was like WHAT??? I dont live here and i can get all these books for free for the entire summer? AND go back for more? Clearly these YT folks have gone crazy.

Santa Monica Public Library is a nice one, it has plenty of study rooms, over 50 computers for internet usage, printers, a small cafe, a small vending store with books costing only 50 cents, and you can borrow books, dvds, magazines, etc. Only downside: if you don't live in the area you have to pay $25 to be a member.

And that is the Los Angeles Central Library; I think it has 5 floors. When they closed on Sundays due to budget cuts, it probably ruined the lives of many people who were living on Skid Row due to financial reasons and needed a escape.

pretty cool, especially the little free Library and the ones in LA...libraries are a reminder of how lucky we are to have access to free education. I used to go to the public library every now and then but I never go anymore. It smells bad, too many weird ppl, and the bathrooms are disgusting bc ppl bathe in them. I hope they're an institution that doesn't go away as we keep going further into the digital age.

pretty cool, especially the little free Library and the ones in LA...libraries are a reminder of how lucky we are to have access to free education. I used to go to the public library every now and then but I never go anymore. It smells bad, too many weird ppl, and the bathrooms are disgusting bc ppl bathe in them. I hope they're an institution that doesn't go away as we keep going further into the digital age.

yes, especially because before blacks could only go to one library and they never had good books and also because everyone is allowed, everyone can rent books or dvs, read newspapers or magazines, and use the computer for whatever they need.

When I first came to the US, I was amazed that I could use the internet for free for one hour and there were so many things in a library. Back home there was a library in a great neighborhood with only ONE computer, and you could use for only ONE hour and the books were outdated and crappy, which sucked because when I needed to do a research, I was checking out books from the 80's.... and that was 2001

It's strange, that the guys at the gyms throughout the country used to "rib" me for this. I used to show my proud collection of library cards from all over the world, and here in the U.S. This was back in the early 80's when i was coined "Conan the Librarian" because i'm a bodybuilder.

Maybe that's where that moniker might have originated, or over time, they realized that all bodybuilders weren't "muscle-heads"..

The only place i couldn't collect a library card? Santa Fe, NM. Trust.. it's a very prejudiced area. The librarian was hostile. I was asking what were the requirements for borrowing a book while on vacation there. And she said: "Because you are an outsider you can't have 'em". Then she turned around to her coworker and pointed over her shoulder at me and said "she's an outsider!!"..

I made sure i had a contract to work at the hospital at Santa Fe, in order to get a library card. And i made sure, she was the one that had to process the application.

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